THE  KENNEDY 
SCHOOL  OF  MISSIONS 


THE  STORY  OF  A  DECADE 
1911  -  1921 


By  Edward  Warren  Capen,  Ph.  D. 


Reprinted  from  the  Hartford  Seminary  Foundation  Bulletin, 
June,  1921. 


A  statement  read  at  the 
Annual  Luncheon 
of  the 

Kennedy  School  of  Mission*, 
May  26,  1921. 


THE  KENNEDY  SCHOOL  OF  MISSIONS 


THE  STORY  OF  A  DECADE 
1911  —  1921 


Today  the  Kennedy  School  of  Missions  celebrates  the  comple¬ 
tion  of  its  first  decade.  Ten  years  are  but  a  minute  fraction  of 
a  second  in  the  onsweeping  of  the  centuries,  and  yet  many  decades 
have  been  momentous  periods  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Even 
in  our  own  land  we  can  see  how  epochal  in  our  history  was  the 
decade  from  1773-1783,  which  saw  the  establishment  of  the  free¬ 
dom  of  the  nation,  an,d  that  from  1855-1865,  which  saw  the  unifica¬ 
tion  of  the  nation.  The  decade  just  closing  has  marked  the  end 
of  one  era  and  the  beginning  of  another  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  the  World  War  has  transformed 
the  world  politically,  socially,  and  religiously.  We  can  hardly  think 
ourselves  back  into  the  world  of  1911. 

What  is  true  in  the  larger  sphere  is  also  true  in  the  sphere 
of  Christian  missions.  It  was  on  New  Year’s  evening,  1911,  that 
President  Mackenzie  first  broached  to  me  the  plan  for  the  School 
of  Missions.  It  is  hard  to  realize  what  the  situation  regarding 
missionary  preparation  was  at  that  time.  The  great  Edinburgh 
Conference  had  dissolved  less  than  six  months  before;  the  Board 
of  Missionary  Preparation  had  not  been  organized;  our  sister 
institution,  the  College  of  Missions  in  Indianapolis,  had  opened 
its  doors  only  three  months  before;  while  that  pioneer  of  mission¬ 
ary  education.  Professor  Harlan  P.  Beach,  who  has  this  year  closed 
his  academic  career  at  Yale,  had  become  head  of  the  Missions 
Department  of  Yale  Divinity  School  less  than  five  years  before. 
With  the  exception  of  a  lectureship  or  a  professorship  in  missions 
here  and  there,  hardly  anything  worthy  of  the  name  of  missionary 
preparation  was  given  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  country.  In 
fact,  only  a  few  years  previously,  one  who  might  almost  be  called 
the  dean  of  Mission  Board  secretaries  bad  said  that  the  regular 
theological  course  was  the  best  possible  preparation  for  mission¬ 
ary  service  and  nothing  more  was  needed. 

Yet  Edinburgh  had  sounded  a  new  note.  The  investigations 
of  Commission  V.  on  the  preparation  of  missionaries  had  revealed 

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the  utter  inadequacy  of  present  methods  in  the  face  of  the  new 
world  situation.  Other  commissions  had  made  recommendations 
pointing  in  the  same  direction. 

In  this  Hartford  had  had  an  honorable  part.  As  Chairman  of 
Commission  V.,  President  Mackenzie  had  shaped  the  report  which 
was  to  revolutionize  the  thought  of  the  mission  world  regarding 
preparation,  and  some  of  the  professors  and  lecturers  in  the  Semi¬ 
nary  had  contributed  important  sections  to  the  report.  For  some 
years  that  prince  of  scholars  on  Islam,  Professor  D.  B.  Macdonald, 
had  been  sepding  to  the  Near  East  a  new  type  of  missionary, 
fitted  to  understand  the  Moslem  mind.  The  A.  C.  Thompson 
lectures  for  years,  and  the  income  of  the  Lamson  fund  more 
recently,  had  been  permeating  the  Theological  Seminary  with  the 
missionary  spirit,  while  the  Case  Library  had  already  become, 
through  the  gift  of  the  Thompson  books  and  large  purchases, 
one  of  the  two  significant  libraries  in  the  country  for  the  student 
of  missions. 

Why,  then,  should  not  Hartford  take  a  leading  part  in  putting 
into  concrete  form  the  proposals  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference? 
So  it  seemed  to  the  Faculty  and  Trustees,  and  on  February  1, 
1911,  the  organizing  secretary  of  the  Hartford  School  of  Missions 
entered  upon  his  duties.  With  him  were  associated,  in  addition 
to  the  President  of  the  Seminary,  four  members  of  the  Seminary 
Faculty,  Professors  Geer,  Gillett,  Jacobus,  and  Macdonald.  The 
Trustees  allocated  to  the  School  the  income  of  the  Lamson  fund, 
and  the  organizing  secretary  was  appointed  Thompson  lecturer. 
This  provided  a  very  modest  income  for  a  new  school. 

As  rapidly  as  possible,  the  general  principles  governing  the 
School  and  the  outlines  of  a  curriculum  were  worked  out  by  the 
Board  of  Administration.  Lecturers  were  secured  from  the  Semi¬ 
nary,  from  the  School  of  Pedagogy,  from  Trinity  College,  from 
the  city,  and  from  experts  on  missions.  A  modest  32-page  pros¬ 
pectus  was  printed,  and  the  organizing  secretary  started  to  inter¬ 
view  the  secretaries  of  the  boards  of  foreign  missions. 

This  trip  took  him  as  far  south  as  Richmond  and  Nashville, 
to  Chicago  and  Toronto,  as  well  as  to  Boston,  New  York  and 
Philadelphia.  The  Edinburgh  leaven  was  working  and  everywhere 
the  plan  was  welcomed  and  encouragement  given.  I  say  every¬ 
where,  though  it  should  be  added  that  one  veteran  secretary,  who 
had  been  carrying  such  a  heavy  load  of  responsibility  that  he  had 
no  energy  left  to  absorb  a  new  idea,  said  that  the  plan  was 
utterly  impracticable.  Not  so  his  associates,  and  that  Board  has 
been  one  of  the  warmest  supporters  of  the  School  during  later 
years. 


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The  School  opened  in  September,  1911.  While  President 
Miackenzie  had  stated  that  he  would  be  satisfied  if  we  secured 
within  five  years  an  enrollment  of  a  dozen,  the  number  of  students 
the  first  year  was  14.  Before  the  close  of  the  first  winter,  the 
princely  gift  of  Mrs.  Emma  Baker  Kennedy  of  New  York  City, 
in  memory  of  her  husband,  the  late  John  Stewart  Kennedy, 
assured  the  financial  permanence  of  the  School  and  led  to  its 
rechristening. 

The  first  decade  of  the  Kennedy  School  of  Missions  falls 
naturally  into  three  parts:  the  three  years  preceding  the  World 
War,  the  five  years  of  the  War,  and  the  last  two  years. 

The  first  three  years  were  a  period  of  beginnings.  The 
enrollment  the  first  year  was  14;  the  second  year,  12;  and  then 
it  rose  in  1913-14  to  21.  With  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  the 
impossibility  of  sending  missionaries  to  the  Near  East,  the  enroll¬ 
ment  jumped  to  46,  and  it  has  remained  in  the  forties  ever  since, 
except  in  1918-19,  when  it  rose  to  60,  owing  to  the  presence  for 
some  months  of  a  party  of  11  Norwegian  missionaries  and  candi¬ 
dates.  They  could  not  go  to  China  by  the  old  route,  and  stopped 
here  for  some  months  in  order  to  become  better  acquainted  with 
English  and  with  the  American  viewpoint. 

Two  years  ago  the  Trustees  disbanded  the  Board  of  Adminis¬ 
tration,  which  had  been  functioning  from  the  beginning,  and 
organized  the  teaching  staff  into  a  Faculty,  with  the  secretary  as 
dean.  Thus  began  the  third  period. 

And  what  are  the  results  of  the  ten  years  ?  The  total  number 
enrolled  as  regular  students  to  date  has  been  304,  of  whom  294 
are  still  living.  Of  these,  242  today  hold  the  commission  of  some 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  and  are  about  to  sail,  are  at  home 
on  furlough,  or  are  actually  on  the  foreign  field.  Of  the  remain¬ 
ing  52,  10  were  detained  from  getting  to  the  front,  8  have  retired, 
10  are  still  preparing  for  service  or  are  temporarily  detained,  22 
are  engaged  in  religious,  social,  or  educational  work  at  home,  and 
2  are  in  administrative  positions.  Of  the  total,  170  were  candi¬ 
dates  or  appointees,  134  furloughed  missionaries. 

The  242  on  the  field  are  literary  in  every  mission  land.  The 
Near  East  claims  62  (28  of  them  in  what  is  left  of  Turkey);  55 
are  in  China;  44  in  India  and  Ceylon;  28  in  pagan  Africa;  23  in 
the  Japanese  Empire;  16  in  Latin  America;  and  13  in  Southeastern 
Asia,  Malaysia,  and  the  Philippines. 

These  men  and  women  are  working  in  at  least  125  strategic 
centers  in  32  countries  The  sun  never  sets  upon  their  labors. 
Five  are  building  up  agriculture;  two  are  adjusting  people  to 
modern  industrial  conditions;  65  are  in  distinctly  educational  work 

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(10  of  them  as  heads  of  higher  institutions);  30  are  training 
girls  and  women;  45  are  heads  of  Christian  homes;  49  are  assist¬ 
ing  the  unfortunate  to  reconstruct  broken  lives,  in  China,  Turkey, 
etc.;  11  are  nurses  and  4  are  physicians. 

We  cannot  claim  that  these  workers  all  had  their  major 
training  in  Hartford.  Many  of  them  have  been  here  for  only 
brief  periods  of  a  few  weeks  or  months,  but  all  have  received  a 
certain  amount  of  training  here,  and  are  working  in  the  Hartford 
spirit.  The  number  who  have  received  the  certificate  of  the 
School  for  a  complete  year’s  work  is  83,  10  of  whom  remained 
for  a  second  year.  To  two  others,  higher  degrees  have  been 
awarded. 

The  ecclesiastical  connections  of  the  students  are  equally 
varied,  no  fewer  than  34  denominational  and  other  agencies  hav¬ 
ing  been  served  by  our  students.  Naturally,  because  of  our  em¬ 
phasis  upon  training  for  work  among  Moslems,  the  American 
Board  has  had  the  largest  number  of  the  students,  69  in  all. 
Close  behind  the  American  Board  is  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  with  59,  and  the  Northern  Presbyterian,  with  33.  Every 
large  denomination  in  the  United  States  and  Canada,  and  many 
of  the  smaller  bodies,  two  branches  of  the  Church  in  Great  Brit, 
ain,  and  several  on  the  continent,  have  been  represented. 

The  expansion  of  departments  has  kept  pace  with  the  growth 
in  enrollment.  We  began  with  merely  a  department  for  Moslem 
lands,  supplemented  by  lectures  on  India,  China,  etc.  Now  we  have 
the  strongest  Africa  department  in  the  country.  It  is  in  charge 
of  Professor  W.  C.  Willoughby,  assisted  by  Dr.  H.  K.  W.  Kumm 
and  Mrs.  Agnes  C.  L.  Donohugh  and,  for  instruction  in  languages, 
by  Dr.  Stanley  L.  Galpin  and  Rev.  George  B.  Nind.  The  China 
department  is  under  one  of  the  recognized  Chinese  scholars,  Dr. 
Lewis  Hodous;  while  the  Mohammedan  department  is  constantly 
adding  to  its  prestige  under  Professors  Macdonald,  Worrell,  and 
Ananikian.  For  a  brief  period  India  was  nobly  represented  by 
Dr.  J.  P.  Jones,  who  came  from  a  position  of  leadership  in  India 
to  one  of  commanding  influence  in  Hartford,  from  which  death 
removed  him  in  the  fall  of  1916.  Last  year  a  department  for 
Malaysia  was  ably  maintained  by  Dr.  W.  G.  Shellabear,  supple¬ 
menting  the  work  of  the  Mohammedan  department. 

While  these  special  departments  have  been  developing,  the 
work  in  the  more  general  field  has  not  been  neglected.  Professor 
Worrell  has  expanded  the  work  in  Phonetics;  while  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Missionary  Practice,  organized  in  1913  by  Mrs.  Labaree 
(now  Mrs.  Platt)  and  under  her  supervision  until  the  autumn  of 
1920,  has  been  an  important  influence  in  the  development  of 

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character.  We  cannot  over-emphasize  the  value  of  her  service  to 
the  School  itself  and  its  effect  upon  the  lives  of  her  students. 
Because  of  the  changes  resulting  from  the  World  War,  it  has 
been  wise  to  modify  somewhat  the  theoretical  courses  and  the 
practice  service  in  this  department,  and  these  changes  go  into 
effect  next  year. 

The  number  of  students  who  have  died  is  ten;  two  in  Africa 
and  two  in  India,  one  in  each  case  (Miriam  Day  and  Mabel  L. 
Chase)  after  but  a  few  months  of  service  and  the  other  two  (Rev. 
C.  H.  Maxwell  and  Rev.  H.  A.  Walter)  in  the  fullness  of  young 
manhood.  Two  (Mrs.  F.  D.  Shepard  and  Dr.  F.  L.  Neeld)  died 
in  the  ripeness  of  old  age  after  a  life  spent  upon  the  field;  two 
(Mary  A.  Simestcr  and  Bernice  Hunting)  shortly  after  returning 
to  their  fields;  one  (Reba  A.  Kirkpatrick)  while  on  the  way  to 
China;  and  one  (M.  Eloise  Eagleton)  while  engaged  in  useful 
work  at  home. 

One  of  these  former  students,  Dr.  Neeld,  had  also  been  a 
useful  lecturer  on  India;  and  another  honored  lecturer.  Dr.  Paul  G. 
Bergen  of  China,  had  passed  away  some  years  before  Dr.  Neeld. 

In  all  these  years  the  Theological  Seminary  has  been  not  only 
the  mother  of  the  School  of  Missions  but  also  its  staunch  ally. 
It  altered  the  Library  building  to  provide  classrooms,  for  which 
it  has  never  charged  a  cent;  it  has  provided  in  the  Library  the 
books  needed,  including  strong  special  collections  for  different 
fields;  its  professors  have  given  of  their  time  and  strength  with¬ 
out  stint;  it  has  contributed  towards  the  administrative  expenses 
of  the  School,  advanced  funds  when  necessary,  and  carried  deficits 
until  repaid. 

And  if  the  Seminary  has  been  a  mother  to  the  School  of 
Missions,  the  School  of  Pedagogy  has  been  a  helpful  sister.  It 
has  provided  the  dormitory  for  the  women  students,  and  its  pro¬ 
fessors  have  gladly  welcomed  our  students  to  their  classes  and 
provided  special  courses  when  called  for. 

Without  the  support  of  these  institutions,  and  especially  with¬ 
out  the  loyalty  and  self-sacrifice  of  the  Faculty,  the  story  of  the 
ten  years  could  never  have  been  written.  The  School  hopes  it 
has  given  as  much  as  it  has  received.  It  has  been  serving  an 
ever-enlarging  constituency,  and  we  trust  that  the  friends  of  the 
School  will  make  possible  its  further  expansion  in  order  that  it 
may  adequately  meet  the  opportunities  ready  to  hand. 


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